


if i could get my shit together

by smallredboy



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Grief/Mourning, HIV/AIDS, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 21:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13579293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy
Summary: Charlotte has been grieving for three months, but Cordelia will always be at her side.





	if i could get my shit together

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys so i just got into falsettos and im Very Sad as i watched the proshoot today. so have these lesbians from next door being Sad™

Logically, Charlotte knows she couldn't have done anything to save Whizzer. As she cuddles up closer to Cordelia, her heart knows she couldn't have done anything to save Whizzer from the disease that was plaguing the gay community.

Gay-related Immune Deficiency, they call it. She doesn't like the name, even though it does seem like all the people that are dying from it are gay and bisexual men.

"I wish..." Charlotte starts. She's been praying a lot. She hasn't done that in a long while, but there's comfort to going to synagogue and have the rabbi tell them it'll be alright. "I wish there was a way I could've saved him." She doesn't have to say _Whizzer_ , for Cordelia knows she means him.

Cordelia pushes her fingers through her hair. "You did everything you could, my doctor," she says, and she says _my doctor_ with such love.

No one wanted to take care of Whizzer but the hospital she works at. No one wanted to take care of a gay man sick to the bone. No one except this local hospital with one too many lesbians in their staff. A part of her wonders if he would have survived if he had been let into one of the big clinics of New York City.

 _Don't be stupid_ , she tells herself, because there's no way Whizzer Brown would've come out of that alive. She saw him as he lost weight, as he threw up food and was skeletical on the hospital bed. She remembers Marvin taking her hand on his, shaky breath. He was trying to be brave — it wasn't working.

 _"I can see his ribs,"_ he had told her.

Charlotte had seen many gay men die on their hospital beds. She had trans women come into the hospital, their hands shaky as they asked, "Am I going to die too?". And she tried to calm them down, goddamn, she really tried, but the problem was that she didn't know.

"I did everything I could," Charlotte tells her girlfriend, letting her head drop to her shoulder. "But I wish I could've done more."

"I know," Cordelia says. She kisses her head.

Charlotte has seen too many gay men die on their beds. And by now, people would expect her not to care anymore — but they were part of a community she's a part of. They were men who loved other men the same way she's a woman who loves other women. Everytime one of them closed their eyes for the last time, it felt like a close friend, a brother of hers, had just died in front of her.

And it was worse in the case of Whizzer Brown. He _was_ , in fact, a close friend of hers. He was part of another tribe she's a part of, too. And it hurts so much. It's been about three months, and she still drags herself through the day. She's started smoking, she's started crying more, she's started praying.

It's her way to cope, she guesses. To cry and to pray and to smoke.

"I should call Marvin," she says. "See how he's holding up." A part of her knows he's caught this disease too. He had sex with Whizzer, after all — and he's no stupid man. He knows this disease is a death sentence.

"It's been three months," Cordelia says.

"Yeah, but they were lovers for years," Charlotte reminds her. She pushes herself up and their lips meet; she cradles Cordelia's face in her hands. She's never loved another woman as much as she loves her — they've known each other for ages, and their love blossomed as soon as they met.

"How's work been, sweetheart?" Cordelia switches the topic like that. Charlotte doesn't mind.

"It's been alright."

It hasn't, in fact, been alright.

"I know you're lying, sweetheart," Cordelia says softly. "Please, just... let me know."

"There's a lot of men sick to the bone," she says, and Cordelia kisses her forehead, a hand on her cheek. "And it's the same thing as always. And they'll keep dying, and —" she sniffles.

"It's okay," Cordelia says, giving her a one-arm embrace. "It's okay, it's okay. We'll be alright."

 _Feel alright for ten minutes, feel alright for twenty minutes, feel alright for forty minutes_ , Jason had told her a few days after Whizzer's death, mimicking Mendel's tone. Even though he felt as broken as she did. She hasn't felt alright in a long, long while. A while that's been three months long.

"I just wish our president would realize..." Charlotte says, and Cordelia holds her. "I just wish everyone but the people affected by this would realize."

Cordelia grimaces. "I wish they would realize, too." Their fingers find each other and they lace them together. Her heart hurts; she's seen too many people die. She's seen too many people die ever since she started her medical career.

And she knew, she always knew she'd see people die. She didn't know she'd see so many gay men, so many trans women die, though.

"I love you," Charlotte tells her, holding her tight. As if holding her tight would push all their problems away. All the things she's seen away. "I love you, I love you, I love you." And she cries, she sobs and she prays for an answer in silence.

It's Thursday. She'll go to synagogue on Saturday, on Shabbat and she will beg for an answer.

"I wish —" and she's never been that religious, but she needs to cope somehow, "I wish HaShem would answer me."

"He will," Cordelia says. She's never been religious either, but she wasn't raised Jewish. Her parents are Catholic, and they'd raised their eyebrows at her being a lesbian — her dating a Jewish woman only added insult to the injury. "He will, sweetheart, I promise."

Charlotte sighs and runs her fingers through Cordelia's blonde hair. "Thank you. I love you, Cordelia."

"I love you too, my doctor," she says, her voice so sweet she can pretend to forget all the hurt she's gone through in this year.

Charlotte smiles.

 _I can get through this_ , she promises herself. 


End file.
